The embodiments disclosed herein relate to sharing the image processing load for a rendering job directed to a target image processing device among interconnected or networked image processing devices. It finds particular application in conjunction with a networked office environment, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present exemplary embodiment is also amenable to other like applications.
In customer installations with networked devices, some image processing devices may be heavily loaded while others are relatively idle. It is desirable to have a method to balance the processing load among the image processing devices. This load balancing would be more advantageous if it could be done without human intervention and with a goal of optimally utilizing the available processing power.
For example, high speed color multifunction (e.g., printer, copier, facsimile, and scanner) devices can have a problem printing large color documents at the rated speed of the device. Production devices can deal with this problem by devoting multiple computers to the job of converting the printer description language (PDL) version of the document into printer ready rasters. However, for networked office machines this multiple central processing unit (CPU) approach is not usually cost effective.